You're Never Too Old To Learn New Skills

Learning is an important aspect of our lives. We learn from experience how to do every day things. We’re born knowing nothing and have to learn to do everything for ourselves. This doesn’t change as we grow older – yes, we often get to a point in our lives where we feel we’re sufficiently capable and know enough to go off on our own, leaving the safety and security of our home – those key life changing moments when we take leaps in our learning – going to school, leaving home, first job, having children. There are always things we can learn at whatever stage in life we’re at and you’re never too old.

I was on a course this weekend where the importance of learning being one of the criteria for success in business was mentioned. Whether you work for a company or work for yourself, it’s always worth taking time to plan your own self-development. You may already do this as part of your annual goal-setting and appraisal process, if not – decide which skills you would like to improve or learn this year to keep your job, earn a promotion, improve your business - communication, marketing, sales, leadership, finance, technical, practical ... the list is endless. Talk them over with your boss, your business partner or a colleague. Look at the options available – courses, workshops, mentoring, working with colleagues to learn how they do it. Time spent on personal development is never wasted.

What's on your list this year, what new skills would you like to learn to develop your business?

If you’d like to get on my goal setting teleclass tomorrow and even if can’t make the time, you can still register and you’ll receive the notes from the call.

Blue Monday

Well according to the general press - today is Blue Monday - the day of the year when the post-Christmas and New Year blues hit.

The bills from all the Christmas spending are landing on the doormat. Relationships already strained over the festive period may have reached breaking point. The days are still short, the weather (at least in the Northern hemisphere) isn't at it's best and the New Year resolutions are starting to slip. This year of course we have a global economic downturn to add to the mix.

But lets look on the bright side. Things could be a whole lot worse. The day's are getting longer as we head towards Spring. We can book a summer holiday to look forward to. We can take pleasure in the simple things in life that don't cost much or are free: spending time with family and friends, getting out for some fresh air and exercise - wrap up warm and wear appropriate clothing.

If those New Year resolutions are getting you down - don't think about what you're giving up but about what you're getting - a healthier, fitter body, a more stream-lined life, less stress, more time.

If things are getting you down - think about what you can do to change them and take one step towards making it happen.

Online Overwhelm

One thing I’ve been doing more of recently is using Twitter. Now I’ve got several tools set up to make my life a lot easier and save time but there’s no doubt that it’s another source of potential overwhelm. There are only so many people you can follow and so many tweets you can read in a day. If you really did want to keep up with your tens of hundreds or even thousands of followers, you wouldn’t have much of your day left to work.

Yes, it’s a great way to stay in touch with people, you get a quick and easy update about who’s doing what and when and you can respond quickly, ask questions, get answers. Far more quickly than by email or through reading a blog. It’s also a great way to find out useful information but as I said, there’s only so much additional information you can take in and most of us are suffering from information overload already.

Add it to your online marketing arsenal or use it as a tool to keep in touch but be careful about how you’re using it and how much time you spend on it. How does it fit in to your day to day business plan? How are you going to use it to grow your business or keep in touch? There are plenty of people on Twitter who can tell you how. Follow them, learn from them but know what’s really going to make a difference to your business and do that first.

Plan For Your Success

I hope you’ve all had a good break over the Christmas and New Year Holiday and didn’t have to get too bogged down in work, while you were meant to be relaxing. I certainly didn’t. In fact I didn't touch my laptop for a whole four days.

If you were working last week and got a chance to have a tidy up and a sort out, you’re probably ready to get going for 2009. No doubt the thought of New Years Resolutions may have passed through your mind at some time over the last few days. These thoughts may have passed swiftly on because you just know you’ll have given them up by February.

But if you reviewed your successes from last year you can plan your success and plan of attack for this year. Knowing where you want to go, means you can at least work out how you’re going to get there and have an idea of which direction you’d like to go in.

• Create a plan.

• Set a few goals - make them specific and set a completion date against each one.

• Think about what achieving these goals will mean to you - personally, financially, emotionally and imagine how you will actually feel when you’ve got there.

• Tell someone about it - or at least write it down. Sharing it with a friend, colleague, mentor or coach makes it more likely to happen than just having it as a vague idea in your head.

• Now you can decide how you're going to achieve them. Break it down into achievable and realistic steps and develop an action plan to take you from A to B … and beyond.

• Importantly - track your progress - make yourself accountable. If you've got someone keeping tabs or nudging you along, you're far more likely to achieve your goals and stay on track. I use checklists as I find this is a good way of keeping me motivated as I tick off each action.

If 2009 is going to be a tough year, it's even more important to make sure that you take time to make time for what you want to achieve and don’t forget to have fun along the way.

You can find more on Goal Setting on www.clareevans.co.uk/articles.htm.